Indonesia third worst in women, child trafficking
Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Indonesia is rated the world's third worst country in its commitment against and law enforcement on women and child trafficking, with an estimated population of 230,000 women and child sex workers trafficked throughout Indonesia.
"Being in the third tier means Indonesia is considered a country without awareness nor action on the issue," director of the Women's Journal Foundation (Yayasan Jurnal Perempuan/YPJ) Gadis Arivia told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
"There are three tiers: The first is for countries with both awareness and action to fight women and child trafficking, while the second is for those with awareness but who haven't yet taken action," she said on the sidelines of the "Don't Buy Don't Sell" national forum on women and child trafficking.
The latest research by YJP in Batam, Riau and West Kalimantan showed that around 5,000 women and children have been trafficked in Batam alone.
The research also revealed that 10 percent of commercial sex workers on the island are children below 18 years of age.
United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) child protection officer Julie Lebegue said that there were at least 70,000 children involved in the commercial sex industry, and that 30 percent of the total number of commercial sex workers in Indonesia were below 18 years of age. Unicef's figure is higher than YJP's findings.
Of the estimated two million underage commercial sex workers around the world, about 225,000 are in the Southeast Asian region.
In West Kalimantan, which shares a 842-kilometer border with Malaysia, most women and child trafficking cases involve cases of mail-order brides, baby trading and trafficking in pregnant women.
"Requests for mail-order brides usually come from Taiwanese men, mostly farmers, fishermen or elderly citizens. Each man must pay between Rp 60 million (US$7,317) and Rp 70 million for an Indonesian woman," said Hairiah, director of the Women's Association for Legal Aid (LBH APIK) in Pontianak, West Kalimantan.
When these Taiwanese men run out of money, they will resell their "wives" as commercial sex workers.
A more inhumane practice is the trade in infants -- Hairiah once found a baby that had died from suffocation after being "packed" in a styrofoam box.
"The babies are usually taken from their mothers in their first month," she said.
A more common method of selling babies abroad is by "sheltering" pregnant women in Malaysia and later taking the babies from them.
A baby is sold from RM 500 (US$128) to RM 12,000. In most cases, the traffickers -- not the mothers -- keep the money.
Hairiah said that the research showed a new trend of old men looking for virgins. A virgin, valued at RM 5,000, is believed to prolong the lives of old men.
Meanwhile, Indonesia only has one law against trafficking in women and children: Presidential Decree No. 88/2002 issued on Dec. 22, 2002 on the national action plan to eradicate women and child trafficking.
State Minister of Women's Empowerment Sri Redjeki Soemaryoto said separately that the government was working on the draft law on woman and child trafficking eradication, and was networking with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on women issues.
"Law enforcement is the key step. Other countries' experiences show that once you start the law enforcement and take it seriously, it will raise people's awareness that it (trafficking in women and children) is a crime," said Lebegue.
Law enforcement also provides the means to punish traffickers.
Speaking on the possibility of Acehnese women and children being trafficked as an aftermath of the ongoing war, she said, "Whenever there is a conflict in an area, you'll get a high risk of trafficking as children are separated from their families and lost their identities. So it will be much easier to traffic them."